


Distraction

by alikuu



Category: Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor (Video Games)
Genre: First Time Together, Hurt/Comfort, Injury, M/M, Off-screen death, Sort Of
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-13
Updated: 2019-03-13
Packaged: 2019-11-17 16:14:46
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,076
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18101999
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/alikuu/pseuds/alikuu
Summary: Talion wants a healer, but what he gets is a distraction.





	Distraction

**Author's Note:**

  * For [P_Jo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/P_Jo/gifts).



> This little fic is a gift to P_Jo whose art fuels my love for this pairing!!!

Talion’s vision was blurred. His sore muscles could barely carry him. He stumbled over his own feet. The battle for the fortress was lost. His forces had been outnumbered and outranked. He had barely escaped the massacre with his own life, wounded as he was.

The wraith was strangely silent. Celebrimbor did not take defeat well.

Finally he reached a war camp that his forces had left vacated the previous day. A few of his loyal followers remained guarding it and although not pretty and stinking of orcs, it was the safest place in Mordor for the night.

“Hey boss, that looks nasty,” one of his followers grunted. “Want me to look at it?”

“No,” Talion’s voice was half growl half groan. He pushed through his faithful mind-controlled servants until he could be alone in the primitive, animal hide tent, which they had built for him.

Once inside Talion fell to his knees over the caragor carpet and groaned his misery aloud. He bent forward, catching himself on his good arm and coughing up blood. His other arm he held close to his chest, trying to spare the broken bones any more damage.

His head continued to spin. It was not a good sign. He was most likely bleeding internally from where that troll had bashed him with a mace. His vision was narrowing and helplessly the ranger rolled onto his back on the floor.

“Celebrimbor,” he uttered in desperation. He hated how weak and needy he sounded - as if he hadn’t endured so many deaths that he should be immune to the terror of what was happening to his body.

“Rest, Talion.” Thankfully the wraith didn’t make him call again - Celebrimbor’s ghostly visage appeared right above Talion’s eyes, almost as if the elf was leaning over him.

“We lost,” Talion forced out, his vision darkening ever more at the corners, his heart pounding madly in his chest. It was over and he hated it. Why did he still fear death after all this time? How he wanted to say that he was hurting… How he wanted to ask for comfort…

“You fought bravely, Talion,” Celebrimbor seemed to sense his needs without the ranger having to voice them. The wraith was now on the ground with him, his cool presence pressed to Talion’s side. Ghostly hands held the ranger’s face. “Give in, Talion! Your body is tired. I’ll wait for you on the other side.”

“Just once I don’t want to,” Talion uttered between ragged breaths. “I don’t want to…”

“It’s easier than to heal. It’s faster,” Celebrimbor’s voice was kind, but what he was suggesting less so. It must have looked so easy for someone separated from life, but to die was not a small ordeal for Talion. Not ever. Just once he wanted to heal. He wanted to be saved.

“Call that… healer… the orc healer…” Talion’s throat was bubbling with blood.

“Talion! You don’t want that creature to lay hands on you!” The wraith argued with a note of steel in his tone. “You are vulnerable.”

“Then help me yourself!” Talion protested in hopeless whispers. “Do something… please.”

In the pause that followed the ranger thought that the wraith had finally abandoned him. Perhaps his whining was too pathetic for an ancient elven lord and Celebrimbor had decided to ignore him and let him die alone.

Thankfully that wasn’t the case.

“I cannot heal you,” he heard Celebrimbor’s voice from the darkness. “But I can give you this -”

…

Talion blinked in confusion. He appeared to be in one of Celebrimbor’s memories - he was surrounded by elven architecture and finery, alone in a spacious bedroom with a balcony that overlooked the city of Ost-in-Edhil.

Not alone though - he turned and saw Celebrimbor as he had once been - alive, dark-haired and dressed in gleaming armour, ready for war.

“What is this?” Talion asked, reaching to touch a tapestry on the wall and finding it very real underneath his finger tips. He had never experienced Celebrimbor’s memories as himself before, never been able to interact with them.

“It’s a memory,” Celebrimbor answered, “or perhaps not exactly that.”

Talion had become used to thinking of the ring-maker as a wraith, but now he was faced with an elf - a very real one, and amongst the very few he had ever encountered in his life.

Celebrimbor looked… magnificent? Was that even a word Talion could call a fellow male and a comrade? It felt strange to be so transfixed by someone he had known for so long and thought he had figured out inside and out.

“It’s a moment in time, in the past,” the elven lord moved closer to him and the purposeful elegance with which the elf walked reminded the ranger of a caragor stalking his prey. “You needed me to give you respite from the pain, so I brought you here - to the eve before Sauron attacked and destroyed my city.”

“So we are inside your memories,” Talion frowned. “But how is that possible?”

“Inside my mind,” Celebrimbor corrected and he stopped a pace away from the ranger, just like he liked to do as a wraith, only in his living form Talion suddenly became aware that the distance between them wasn’t that big at all. “Your body is still dying on the ground in that wretched war tent in Mordor, but your mind is currently inhabiting a place within my own.”

“So finally we are even - you inhabit my body and now I can inhabit your mind,” Talion’s chuckle was forced. The idea that his body was lying defenceless with his mind unaware didn’t put him at ease. If anything it made him even more angry at the wraith. “As much as I appreciate the gesture, wouldn’t it have been easier if you had just called the healer, like I asked?”

“And have that orc touch every part of you,” Celebrimbor sounded disgusted. “That was no option at all.”

“He would have healed my wounds,” Talion stressed. “What’s it with you anyway? You said that you don’t really feel what I feel.”

Or you wouldn’t have been so opposed to getting the doctor, Talion thought morosely.

“Because you are mine,” Celebrimbor growled, his gleaming eyes flashing with possessive fury as he stepped right into Talion’s space, so close they were almost nose to nose. Talion’s eyes widened before he steeled himself and held his ground. Celebrimbor could not intimidate him, nor he could claim ownership over him as if he was another mind-controlled thrall.

“And you are mine, wraith,” he answered with a warning tone of his own. “And you will heed my words when I ask you, as my ally, as my friend…”

“You misunderstand me,” Celebrimbor cut him off. “No one gets to touch you but me. You are mine, Talion. I won’t have an orc lay hands on you if I can help it. Not while you are still alive and in possession of that body.”

Talion’s jaw slackened in surprise. He knew what he had heard, but he could still not believe that he had understood correctly.

“Have you gone mad?” he uttered in bewilderment.

“Perhaps,” Celebrimbor conceded and walked away from him, leaving the ranger suddenly bereft.

The elf didn’t get far. He sat on the softly cushioned bed, his armoured frame sinking heavily into the silks of the sheets.

“There is some time still,” Celebrimbor’s voice had turned strangely soft. “That is, if you won’t rather spend it in agony in Mordor. One word from you and I will release you and let you return to your body.”

Talion knew when he was being propositioned, and he was far from a blushing virgin, yet this was the most unlikely proposal he had ever received. Not an unwelcome one, however. The idea of tackling Celebrimbor on the bed and seeing which one would come on top made his desire stir. He had always wondered who would win if they fought...

“Am I understanding this correctly,” Talion begun slowly approaching the bed, half hesitating, half disbelieving that such a thing was happening, “you want me to join you on the bed?”

Celebrimbor looked up at him from where he sat with eyes filled with challenge.

“Yes,” was all he answered, but his voice was hoarse, full of desire. That’s when Talion made a decision.

He unhooked his cape, letting it fall and pool at his feet before the bed where Celebrimbor sat. Next came the sword belts and his weapons, which he lay down with care. His companion watched him with hungry, luminous blue eyes that seemed to glow in the twilight.

“You can help if you like,” Talion cajoled.

Celebrimbor didn’t need to be told twice. He went straight for Talion’s belt working the buckle quickly with clever fingers, drawing it off the man’s waist and pulling the ranger forward at the same time. Talion noticed that despite the lack of hesitation, his elven companion wasn’t completely unmoved - Celebrimbor’s hands had an uncharacteristic shake and his breaths were coming out fast and trembling. When he looked up at Talion he looked almost desperate.

Without thinking Talion cupped Celebrimbor’s jaw, cradling his face and caressing his cheek with a thumb.

“Been a long time?” he made a guess sympathetically.

The elf just nodded and pulled away, standing up beside Talion to get the ranger undressed more efficiently. Talion helped him and together they got rid of the remaining of the rangers armour and clothes until Talion was standing bare as the day he was born before the elf who was still in full armour. They were the same height and when Celebrimbor leaned forward to kiss his mouth Talion was surprised by how odd it felt to kiss someone his own size. It was also strange to feel Celebrimbor as someone corporeal beside him. His elven body was strange, it smelled faintly of something fresh and pure, which the ranger couldn’t place; his cheeks where beard should have grown were as smooth and blemish-free as a child’s; his hair was cool and silky, threading through it felt almost like running his fingers through water. But Celebrimbor’s mouth was as hot as any mouth Talion had ever kissed and his lips and tongue moved against the rangers own in a familiar, lustful way that elicited desire from the man.

Talion pressed his body forward and his hips were met with cool mithril armour. He rocked back and pressed forward again, but this time it was heat and skin that met him. The ranger opened his eyes, blinking away the confusion and finding Celebrimbor completely undressed before him.

“How…”

“I told you - this is all a production of my mind,” the elf told him and kissed him again.

Talion found that he didn’t care how or why. He had completely forgotten where he was and that somewhere his body was actually dying. He pushed the elf onto the bed and they fell down together. The mattress was the softest one the ranger had ever lied upon and the sheets were made of the finest silk. Beside him Celebrimbor’s body was all smooth muscle and long limbs and he was fighting for control, trying to push Talion on his back to straddle his hips. Talion laughed and rolled them over again, pinning the elf’s wrists above his head. Suddenly the world seemed to shake and a black wave of nausea passed over the ranger, leaving him momentarily light headed before that too passed.

“That was it,” the ring-maker breathed heavily into his ear. “You have passed over.”

“Does that mean that you will bring me back to reality now,” Talion asked.

“Not unless you want me to.”

Talion answered that with a hard kiss.

...

When the ranger became aware of his own body he was back on top of one of the towers, fully hale and reincarnated.

“Do you think you can do this again next time an orc spears me on his sword or poisons me half to death,” Talion asked. “I really appreciated the distraction, amongst other things…”

“If that’s your way to tell me you enjoyed this, then very well,” the wraith answered in his mind. “I too found this slightly more entertaining than simply waiting for your reincarnation to happen.”

“Seems like we got a deal then,” Talion smiled, knowing that Celebrimbor watched him. “Now, we do have our revenge to pick up on. Where should we strike next?”

…


End file.
